Sola Gratia

7. Resolved, to persevere in pleading for the souls I love, in trust that Your love and plans for my friends are exceedingly greater than my ambitions for them. In Your power to work immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine, and in frank recognition that You display this power in such a way that You will not share Your glory with another... Resolved, to pray for friends the miracle of conversion, especially for those who seem "impossible," as though it ever takes any less than a miracle. With You, all things are possible.

8. Resolved, when tempted to give up laboring hope for someone's salvation or to count evangelism futile, to take heart--to remember my baptism and be grateful. Remember, once you were dead. Remember, you who once hated Him are now a trophy of his mercy. Remember Saul turned Paul.  Forgetful heart, how can good news--and believing in it--be futile?

falling tears from failing eyes

how is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity’s song — all without lifting a finger that we could see. you have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped. Ii you have not abandoned us, explain yourself...

we strain to hear. but instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. through our tears we see the tears of God.

// Nicholas Wolterstorff. Lament for a Son. Eerdmans: 1987, p. 70.

Who then are the mourners?

The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God's new day, who ache with all their being for that day's coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence... The mourners are aching visionaries. Such people Jesus blesses; he hails them, he salutes them. And he gives them the promise that the new day for whose absence they ache will come. They will be comforted. The Stoics of antiquity said: Be calm. Disengage yourself. Neither laugh nor weep. Jesus says: Be open to the wounds of the world. Mourn humanity's mourning, weep over humanity's weeping, be wounded by humanity's wounds, be in agony over humanity's agony. But do so in the good cheer that a day of peace is coming.

// Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son.

can't hide beneath my sheets.

ONE.

snowed here over the weekend. a joyous time of ignoring the impending frostbite in our soggy socks and our numb fingers. first snowfall, first snowfights, in costumes and all. mine was yoshi. great ironies. God laughs. the plumber and his princess are all over facebook today. you've blocked me and even ignore me when i ask you why. why, alyosha, do you feel the need to hide from me? to what end? if you are trying to spare me the details of how happy your life is without me, how can you possibly expect that to work when we share all these friends? it's not your happiness that harasses me, it's your exclusion. your silence keeps me ruminating. do you not care or do you just hate me? if you are punishing me, it hurts, it's working, please stop.

TWO.

it was 27 degrees saturday so i had to dig out all my winter gear. a scarf nearly windswept off the roof. raccoon hat and blue weatherproof gloves, fluffy fleece sweater and the black arm warmers i insisted you wear. and jacket pockets, still full of paper snowflakes for you, when you least expect it from a cirque so lame that the super salty buttered popcorn was the happiest part, aside from you of course. pen refills. guilt-stained flannel sheets and tearful down comforters. bright eyes and full hearts. these were the things i put away in march as your affections melted. i havent had to see them since then, but winter decided to crash our happy halloween here. and memories of you, how you visited me at my very worst, they came crashing through too...

THREE.

friend, what happened to you? you were never one to turn your back on someone in need, a blind eye to hurt and responsibility, or to resign to the "irreconcilable." am i to blame, did i injure you beyond recognition? you've pushed me out and brought her in, a replacement in your life. a replacement among our friends. you've made it impossible for me to belong. you who always welcomed me home before now prolong my exile. you can stay, i guess. i will go. you can keep them too.

FOUR.

or maybe, at the end of today, i guess i have stayed, and you have left. life moves on, you move on. everyone moves except the paralyzed.

o Lord, heal. say to me, arise, go, tell.

i'm singin the same lines all over again,

so renew Your song in me.

i keep going back

i search for shelter near the mines we swept
i guess forgiveness hasn't happened yet
there are no words that i can say to you
to turn this careless sky from black to blue

// jars of clay

True Sense

Isaiah is probably my favorite book of the Bible. Many mornings spent steeping in its sunrise glory and praying for that hope in Chapter 60 to rise and dawn in my life. In our lives. For Christ, the hope of glory, to come through.

"... and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind."

Today 65:17 filled me with hope and pause. A side effect of heaven is that the new, the real, the true, will so outshine the shadows... But these words for the first time gave way to deep, deep peace about the flashbacks and vivid rememories I've been so fearful of lately.

For years I've counted on being able to think myself into the right corner. God is bringing his grace to reside somewhere deeper in my being than the intellect and deeper than biochemistry, but that pruning has been so painful. I'm verging on crazy at moments.

But it clicked today, that in the new, healed order, there will be no flashbacks. All I will see is the only thing that has been Real all along. Everything else... just shadows of its substance. A dim reflection. So I wait by faith, live by faith. Not by sight, my earthly perception of real and non-real (however reliable that perceiving may be or however mentally stable)--not even by the mind's eye and its crazy ways of seeing. Seen things are transient.

To put stock in worldly sights as though it were real/permanent. Now that would be truly crazy.

One sunrise closer to that day, when we shall see with unveiled faces.

More Holiday Talk with Ellen Lin

Back for more, after our lovely conversation about Labor Day. We could make this a quarterly thing. And Thanksgiving is the always the fourth Thursday of November, apparently.

Ellen: hey what day is thanksgiving?

 me: thursday

 Ellen: but which one?

 me: 11/24

  the last thurs of november always.

  or is it the thursday of the last full week in november

  i forget

 Ellen: hah i have no idea

  but i think that sounds right!

  haha

10:36 PM me: why do you ask

  do you need me to google things for you again

  http://lmgtfy.com/?q=when+is+thanksgiving%3F

 Ellen: hahaahha i hate you

10:37 PM i love googleeee :D